


Sensory Endings

by Arsenic



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, Lazarus Pit, M/M, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 21:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15422001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: There are a number of aftereffects from the Pit, of course, but none are so hard to deal with as the way Jason's nerves want to react to EVERYTHING.





	Sensory Endings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiwiliko (kukoo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kukoo/gifts).



> Dear Kiwiliko, thank you for this prompt, I had so much fun using it as a treat. This is unbeta'ed, since I was trying to get a few treats written before the posting dates, and I'm not sure it ended up being EXACTLY what you asked for, but I'm hoping you'll at least get a bit of enjoyment out of it.
> 
> Canon notes: this assumes Jason doesn't get right to work as Red Hood upon returning to Gotham and instead takes some time to get the lay of the land.

When Jason is finally ready to return to Gotham, there's a new strip of stupidly trendy shops in the area separating the poorest neighborhoods of Gotham from the more transiently, college-student impoverished Gotham U city blocks. In one of them, a person can order ice cream, and it's made right in front of them, with whatever ingredients are necessary and a bowl of liquid nitrogen.

Jason orders the vanilla latte flavor and watches as it is mixed up, nitrogen and cream being whisked by the mixer's blades against the stainless steel of the bowl. For the first time, he thinks he has a metaphor for how he feels inside his skin every waking hour.

*

Dick finds Jason before Jason is ready to be found. Later Jason will learn how, all the details, the tiny mistakes Jason made in his confidence that being assumed dead would be enough of a cover, how Babs caught him in one of her feeds and followed the bread crumbs Jason carelessly dropped. But he doesn't know any of that the morning he hears a knock on fifth-story window and glances out to see Dick on his balcony. The one that doesn't have a fire escape.

Jason bears his teeth and growls. He's forced himself to shower this morning, although even at a mild temperature, the water feels like a combination of heated and frozen knives burrowing into his skin. Every pain receptor in his body is online and he's unquestionably more feral than the starving child Bruce found jacking the Batmobile's tires all those years ago.

Dick picks the lock and cracks the casement open, eeling his way inside the apartment. Jason, still in a towel, not ready to force himself into the torture chamber of clothes, grabs the nearest gun—under the sofa cushion—and trains it on Dick.

Dick puts his hands in the air and asks, "If I close the window, you gonna shoot?"

"I haven't decided not to even if you don't," Jason tells him.

"Okay, well, seeing as how I have a fifty-fifty chance of being shot no matter what I do, I'm just gonna mention up front that I tapped some back channels to figure out what was going on when it looked like you might be alive so I have some idea of what you've been up to and don't doubt for a second that I would probably already be very dead if that was what you really wanted."

The barrel of the gun feels bruising against Jason's palm. "It's genuinely a fucking mystery to me as to how it is I'm the one of Bruce's kid soldiers who ended up dead."

Dick stills in a way he hasn't before, not even under the threat of being shot, and says, with the most sincerity Jason has ever heard from him, "Yeah, me too."

"What do you want, Original Recipe?"

Dick looks upwards, then back at Jason. "You got a few hours?"

"Give me the abridged version."

Dick looks down this time and Jason waits. When Dick glances back up, he says, "To say I missed you, I guess."

The beat of Jason's pulse against his skin is nauseating. "You've said it. Get out."

*

Dick goes, but he comes back. Jason even switches apartments, employing every method of subterfuge taught to him over his years with the League, and Dick finds him. Twice.

Dick brings him gifts, as if Jason's a magpie or a dragon who will soften at the sight of shiny things. There's an adult coloring book with pencils and the inscription, "Cass says this might help with the worst of the post-Pit dissociation. Katas are good, too, but we agreed this is more fun."

There's a copy of Isabel Allende's _Daughter of Fortune _with a gift receipt and the note, "Babs remembered you liking this author."__

__The box of Recchiuti pistoles has a silver ribbon that reads, "compliments of Alfred, he would like to inform you he will haunt your dreams should you make it with anything less than whole cream."_ _

__It is the night Dick shows up empty handed, though, that Jason succumbs to Dick's desire to get closer. Jason is soaked, having been caught out in a surprise downpour. The water was cold, it being early November in Gotham, and it is all Jason can manage simply not to peel his own skin off. He's actively considering holding his lighter to his palm just to have a centralized dose of pain on which to concentrate, when Dick lets himself in from the fucking skylight—the damn thing's not even supposed to open—and finds Jason shivering in the middle of his apartment, trying not to scream._ _

__Jason snarls at Dick, too overwhelmed and overstimulated to even reach for one of the guns tucked against his back, his thigh, his ankle. Dick raises both hands and tilts his head to the side, asking the air, "Batgirl, you on the comms?"_ _

__There must be a response, because Dick continues, "You mentioned there might be physical aftereffects of being put in the Lazarus Pit?"_ _

__A good minute, maybe more, passes before Dick nods. "Yeah. Okay. Okay, I'll try that, thanks. Nightwing out." Dick touches a finger to his ear. "Jay, will you let me help?"_ _

__Jason should say no. He knows that with everything in him. He is tired, though, and every nerve he has is alive in a different, too too too much way. He says, "Make it stop. Just. Make it stop."_ _

__"Yeah," Dick says. "Okay, do you have a bathtub?"_ _

__Jason feels his breathing pick up with barely contained panic. "No water, no—"_ _

__"Jay, I swear, I swear I will help, but you're going to have to trust me. I know you don't want to, I really do, but if you don't, I can't make you feel better."_ _

__Jason swallows. It feels like eating needles. "Second door on the right."_ _

__Dick nods. "Try and get your clothes off, okay?"_ _

__Jason does. It involves biting right through his lip not to scream, but he does it. Every step to the bathroom is what he imagines walking on heated coals without any training feels like. In the bathroom he finds his tub filled with water and the green tea packets that had come in a package from China that Jason had definitely not ordered the week before. The receipt had been from an account linked to Alfred, though, and it was stupidly good tea. Jason blinks at it sadly._ _

__Dick must notice, because he says, "We'll order you more. Cover your skin with as much of the mixture in the sink as you can."_ _

__Jason glances over. Sure enough, the sink is filled with a white goopy paste that doesn't smell of anything. The texture is slightly gritty, and Jason has to struggle not to whimper._ _

__Dick talks. Jason has no idea about what. It's weirdly soothing, though, the smooth cadence of his chatter. It helps distract him from the worst of the sensation. When he's finished, Dick says, "You gotta get in the tub, Jay."_ _

__He almost can't. Dick has to remind him to breathe at least four times, and Jason knows he loses time, but somehow, he ends up in the water._ _

__And— "Oh," Jason says, because for the first time since the Pit, his nervous system has stopped waging a war on him. The water is lukewarm, and he wouldn't call it relaxing but it is mellowing. The constant sharp-hot-cold-more-more-more of sensation calms._ _

__Jason doesn't know how long it's been—it seems like seconds—when Dick says, "Hey, don't fall asleep in there."_ _

__Jason mumbles, "Tired," too exhausted to front._ _

__"I know, but c'mon, bed is a better place for sleeping."_ _

__Jason shakes his head. "Bed. Too much. Like little electric pricks."_ _

__"Cass said repeated applications of the baking soda paste and soakings should help siphon off the effects, but even one will give you some relief. You have a clean set of sheets? I'll change the linens while you dry off."_ _

__"Staying here," Jason says._ _

__"Jay, come on. You've trusted me this far and it's worked. Little bit more."_ _

__Jason opens one eye to adequately express his displeasure with this plan. Dick says, "I know, little wing." He reaches out to gently tousle Jason's hair and Jason nearly flinches away before he realizes it doesn't hurt. It's been so long since someone has touched him without pain that without even being aware he's doing it, he's arching up into the touch. Dick doesn't draw away. Instead, he says, "Get yourself out of the tub and in some p.j.s and I'll massage your scalp in bed until you fall asleep."_ _

__Jason is as susceptible to bribes as the next man._ _

____

*

"You did something to my sheets," Jason says, starfishing out over them. They don't smell like his detergent, instead there's a faint overlay of lavender and something he can't place. It's settling, the cotton actually soft against his fingertips, the map of his skin.

"Yeah, that idea came from Alfred. He wasn't sure if it would work, but Leslie said it was worth a shot."

"I love Alfred." Jason might be slightly drunk on not feeling like he's being immolated from the inside out.

"Mm," Dick says. "Head massage?"

Jason's breath catches on what he wants to ask for and Dick asks, "Jay?"

"Just—it's…touching, it's hurt, since."

There's a moment of silence and then Dick says softly, "You're telling me you haven't had any non-painful touch since you came back?"

Jason can't read Dick's tone, too wiped to hear nuance. "You don't—"

There's a few seconds of rustling and then Dick is there, in a cotton undershirt and boxers, pulling Jason carefully into his arms. "If it's too much, just push me away, or say something."

Jason knows every reason why this is a bad idea in the very marrow of his bones. He snuggles in, trying to burrow into the touch. Dick rubs at his back, saying, "I got you, you're good, I'm here, Jay."

Jason wants to stay awake, to float in the touch like he did the bath, but the tide of sleep is too much no matter how hard he struggles against its pull.

*

Jason wakes to the buzz under his skin having returned and desperately fights his way free of Dick's hold, doing his best not to give into tears of frustration. He has some rest now, he can resist.

Dick sits up and says, "Bath time. Babs sent more info from Cass last night. With the help of the topical mixtures, the nerves should eventually repair themselves, they just need a little push. Cass called it a reminder of how they're supposed to work, which I suppose is as good an explanation as any."

This time, Dick helps him put the mixture on his skin while the tea is soaking, and Jason can acknowledge that the sensations are less intense. Jason tells him, "I can handle it from here. You should go do your job, or something."

"Called in sick. Family emergency."

Jason steps into the tub and says, "I'm not your family."

When Jason breaks the surface of the water, Dick takes his hand and kisses the center of his palm. It tingles through Jason like the taste of really good chocolate or the feel of a warm blanket on a winter's day. Dick says, "You keep telling yourself that, little wing."


End file.
